Alliance
by Hovinarri
Summary: So if Ryou opened his locked heart for Marik, the other would do the same. The tan Egyptian never even realized what he was reaching for. Post-canon, Angstshipping


I wrote this ages ago, and only now decided that I should actually post it here~

My lovely Angstshipping. I really wish I could write more of it, because frankly, it's almost better than Tendershipping if you ask me.

This won't be too long. A few chapters, I think. Depends a little on how I plan it from here onward.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, any of the characters or places or anything. I get no profit from this, it's just fun.

**Warnings:** Language (once, how scary), mentions of death and blah.

But um yeah. Read.

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><p>Yugi Mutou. The kid with weird hair and a passion for games, who used to be the best Duel Monsters player in the world.<p>

That's in the past now, though.

A year has passed, Yugi has grown (or so he claims, you can't really tell with him, he's like a midget or something), he has stopped playing games, he has started to spend more time with his friends.

With two exceptions - Ryou Bakura and Marik Ishtar.

Yugi stays very, very, very far from these two, for as they were both his worst enemies. Well, their dark sides were, at least.

How are you even supposed to talk to someone who was your friend, then was possessed by evil and your own dark side killed this evil only to have them hating you for killing the only one who ever cared for them?

Well, it's awkward, to say the least.

But that doesn't stop him from hoping they could still find happiness.

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><p>Ryou was walking in the school corridor, wearing a white t-shirt, light-blue jeans and the black trench coat that once belonged to his dark side. It was a tribute to Yami Bakura, and he rarely took it off anymore. He looked around, having to move his head a little every time with his gaze. His white hair was slightly longer now, as it was something he was proud of - because both Ryou Bakura and his dark side possessed that pure white hair. Too bad it really took down his range of vision.<p>

"Ryou! Over here!"

He turned his head slightly so that afore-mentioned white hair was his was out of his face and he could see his best and pretty much only friend standing by their lockers.

"Marik, hi!" he walked over to the other teen to be awarded with a smile.

"I have history next... What's your next class, Ry-Ry?"

Ryou rolled his eyes, for as the answer was obvious. They had all the same classes, for they had made it very clear that someone would pay if that couldn't be arranged. A few people had paid, actually, but it was arranged in the end. "History."

Marik laughed. "Skip it with me?

Ryou nodded with a content smile, since spending time alone with Marik would definitely be worth skipping a class or two (or three or four or...) "Why do you even ask?"

"Where we headed?" Marik asked, another question to which the answer was obvious. He just liked to see Ryou give him the 'you-should-have-known-that' look.

"To the roof!" Ryou laughed and wiped his hair from his face to see the other smile at him.

"Do you even see anything from behind your hair anymore?" Marik asked him, opening his locker in progress.

Ryou laughed only a little awkwardly. "Actually, no. But there's nothing except you to see here anyways, so I don't mind." he opened his locker next to Marik's. Since they went everywhere together, it was only natural they had threatened a few people to get their lockers next to each others'. Threatening people was something Marik was very good at, whenever he wanted something, at least.

Ryou took his history books for show and Marik looked around.

"You care to see that?" he suddenly asked and nodded towards something behind Ryou, causing the whitette to whirl around to display a lot of people - including someone small with tricolored hair.

"Why isn't it our friend Yugi." Ryou muttered, his features quickly losing all signs of happiness and turning into an out-of-character scowl, his voice suddenly dripping with poison. "Shall we honor the Pharaoh's light side with our presence, tombkeeper?" he asked Marik a little playfully, turning back around on the last words.

"Gods, Ryou, you sound just like your yami sometimes..." Marik muttered with a chuckle. "We shall."

He gained an angelic smile from Ryou for this. "I try."

Both closed their lockers and walked over to Yugi.

It was funny, really. At first, the small teen looked scared. Then, apparently recognizing them as friends, he relaxed. Then, probably recalling that they weren't friends anymore, he looked around for an escape route.

"Well well well, isn't it Yugi." Ryou said with obvious amusement. "What a -pleasure- to run into you here."

Yugi looked like a cornered small animal at this point, his eyes darting between Ryou and Marik.

"Bakura-kun... Marik-kun..." he muttered, attempting a smile.

Ryou's hand twitched, and Marik could tell the whitette wanted to hit his so-called "friend". Marik didn't have a slightest clue why he even bothered to let these pathetic people live. The only thing they seemed capable of was making Ryou feel invisible and useless.

"Ryou." Marik growled to Yugi, causing the teen to look around confused.

"The name's Ryou." Ryou continued for his friend. "Although you never cared enough to tell the difference between me and..." he looked down, fighting tears. "Bakura."

Marik ruffled his white hair soothingly before giving Yugi a death glare. This was what he meant; The midget didn't even understand how he was hurting Ryou.

But he did. Now Yugi finally realized what he had done wrong. He had seen these two change right in front of his eyes, and it was not little by little. And that's why he had decided to stay away from them.

However, he had not realized he had caused all this. Now that he had it all figured out, it was painfully obvious - hatred was the cause of this. Hatred towards Yugi and his dark side for killing the two other yamis.

The situation was scary. While Yugi hadn't known Marik before Battle City, he had known Ryou.

How the teen would smile so easily while greeting his friends, and now he passed everyone except Marik with a shrug. Yugi didn't even understand how Ryou could stand being with Marik, from all the people of the world. The Egyptian was so unbalanced, so different from Ryou.

"Oh... I'm sorry... What are you doing here?" Yugi asked them, still quite terrified. He wanted to become friends with Ryou again. He wanted to be a friend of Marik's too.

Marik looked at him innocently. "What, we aren't allowed to come and talk to our friend anymore?"

"You aren't a friend of mine." Yugi didn't think before saying it. Sadly.

Ryou let out a low growl and glared at Yugi.

Yugi wanted to hit himself - why did he have to say that?

"Hey Ry-Ry, you up for a movie night tonight?" Marik asked the other teen to cheer him up, now completely ignoring Yugi again.

"You bet! It's Friday, after all! It would suck without a movie night with you!" Ryou chimed happily, nearly jumping up and down. Yugi couldn't tell if he was faking it or not, but Marik just knew. He wasn't.

Marik smiled to him and took his hand before leading him back to their lockers.

Yugi was left there, simply staring. He had just witnessed Ryou smiling. Happily. To Marik Ishtar. Who smiled back. Called him with a nickname. And took his hand!

Maybe it wasn't like all hope was lost for the two after all.

Yugi wandered to the cafeteria in hopes of finding his friends, naturally excluding Ryou and Marik, who didn't eat anything in the cafeteria anyways. Ever. Yugi briefly wondered how they were still alive.

"Yugi! Hi!" Honda called to him. He walked to their table and sat down.

"Gods, Yugi, what happened to you?" Anzu asked him, after seeing the weird emotion on his face.

"Ryou and Marik."

Everyone understood right away. Those two were inseparable nowadays, causing trouble everywhere. You'd think Ryou would calm Marik down, but it was pretty much the exact opposite.

"The resident badass duo?" Jounouchi asked, to which Yugi nodded, and Jounouchi continued, "That's half surprising. What did ya do to 'em?"

"Say that Marik's not a friend of mine" Yugi sighed. "It was stupid from me, really."

"And Ryou got mad at you? I really don't get those two." Anzu muttered the last part more to himself than Yugi.

"Oh! That's what I wanted to talk to you about!" Yugi suddenly remembered, causing everyone to look at him curiously.

And so he explained everything from the moment Ryou had greeted him venomously to the way Ryou and Marik had left holding hands.

"You're imagining it, Yugi. There's absolutely no way there's anything going on between those two." Anzu said, trying to not hurt Yugi's feelings.

"Isn't Ryou straight?" Honda asked, trying to recall seeing Ryou ever drooling after some guy.

"Haven't you guys heard da rumors?" Jounouchi asked them, trying to hide his surprise.

"Rumors?" Yugi repeated.

Jounouchi nodded. "Yeah, they say those two are going out, but nobody can say for sure. Since they're always together, it might be da reason."

"This calls for spying!" Yugi declared.

Anzu seemed to doubt the idea. "Isn't it more like stalking? Ryou is our friend, after all..."

Yugi nodded slowly. "Call it whatever you want, but we will find out the truth."

* * *

><p>"Which classes do we have today?" Ryou questioned Marik, who always remembered things like this.<p>

Marik closed his eyes and imagined the timetable before him. "History, Japanese, and math." he muttered. "Could we skip 'till math? Please?" he pleaded Ryou, without needing to explain himself. They both knew Marik found Japanese incredibly complicated.

"Well..." Ryou started, leaning against Marik while looking at the clear sky. His grades were great regardless of all the classes he had skipped with Marik, but he was still wary of ditching.

"Yugi's there..." Marik hit a nerve, like he had hoped to.

"Can you believe it? How can he be such a fucking idiot?" Ryou suddenly screeched to Marik.

The other shot him a warning glance. He didn't like hearing the angelic boy swear, it was just plain wrong.

Ryou immediately apologized; he was more or less aware of this too. "I'm sorry Marik, it's just... Gah, it was just so arrogant and rude!"

"I was happy when you stood up to me, though." Marik grinned. "Thanks for that."

Ryou beamed at him. "Anytime, you're my best friend forever!" with these words, the white-haired boy hugged Marik.

Marik stared at him for a few seconds before wrapping his arms around the pale boy. Not like it felt wrong or anything... But wasn't that fact wrong in itself? This was Ryou, his best friend, the fragile boy who he hang around with because it was an alliance. It made sense.

"You too. Always."

_-Flashback-  
><em>

Marik had come to the Bakura household to apologize to Ryou for all the wrongs his yami and he had committed. It had been a request from Ishizu while they were in Japan.

"Look, Bakura, I'm sorry." Marik looked at the ground while apologizing.

"Ryou." Ryou corrected.

"Huh?" Marik looked up now.

Ryou sighed sadly. "The name's Ryou. If you can remember that, then I can forgive you."

Marik nodded. "Sure. Ryou." That wasn't a complicated name or anything, so why would he forget it?

"Okay then, let's start over. Nice to meet you. My name is Ryou Bakura." Ryou held out his hand, waiting for Marik to accept or decline the offer.

Marik gave him an odd stare. "Just like that?"

Ryou smiled to him and nodded. "I know what it's like to have a yami, and I want to be friends. You can understand."

Marik returned the smile and took his hand. "Marik Ishtar. Nice to meet you."

And from there, things had been going better.

Ryou had invited him inside, he had made them tea and talked about all the minor things. School, his friends, family, everything. They had talked like normal people would. Until Marik realized the passing time and informed Ryou that he should leave, that is.

That was when Ryou had a mental breakdown. He started crying and he couldn't seem to stop, at least not before Marik promised to stay with him. The whitette doubted this greatly but believed the Egyptian in the end.

So Marik moved in with the whitette. Ishizu had allowed it quite easily. ("Ryou is stable" she had said. Marik privately wondered what she would've said if she had actually been there to witness Ryou's breakdown.) After this, Marik wanted to think Ryou wouldn't allow Marik to leave his side. But it wasn't true.

Marik had always been free, Ryou had never forced him to stay. He had just decided that his place was by Ryou's side.

_-End of flashback-_

Marik was forced to leave his musings as Ryou startled him by leaning against him. Marik opened his eyes to see that Ryou was asleep, his head now laying on Marik's lap.

"Huh. I guess this means you're agreeing to skip Japanese?" Marik muttered quietly, still looking at Ryou. His white-haired friend had seemed a little worn out all day, so maybe it was better he got a little sleep.

When the whitette continued sleeping lightly as an answer, Marik shrugged and continued to remember his friendship with Ryou.

_-Flashback-_

Ryou had always been innocent and trying his best to blend in. People took him like a piece of decoration - pretty but utterly useless on its own, something no one seemed to notice from the setting. Background. A single stroke of a paintbrush, completely lost in the huge canvas.

It sucked. Marik immediately saw that Ryou was a lot more than what meets the eye, but the hard part was luring it out to play. The white-haired teen had low self-esteem, and even getting him to speak a few words seemed difficult, even more so when the teen was around his so-called friends, the ones that had been hurting him so.

Ryou felt so useless in that group (he told this to Marik afterwards), but he still wanted to stay there, because they were nice to him (when bothering to remember his existence, for crying out loud!). Marik had to literally drag him away from them at school to get him to talk to the Egyptian.

Marik had explained that Ryou had to be the kindest and most beautiful (he really had said that, only later realizing it) person there is, and he should be more sure of himself. It hadn't taken Marik long to change Ryou to live for himself rather than others. Marik was very much aware Yugi and the other friends of Ryou's couldn't think of the cause.

Maybe it was too hard. There were two parts to it, anyways. The first was their yamis' death. It had hurt both Ryou and Marik, making deep wounds in their souls - no, actually more like it had taken a part of their souls away. Because that's what it was.

The other part was that Marik had suggested this - an alliance. They could understand each other, they could help each other get through this, they could both have someone who'd understand what they saw when looking at the mirror.

Something that could only be provided by another light, and Yugi was and would always be out of the question. He had other people there for him, he had never really needed the Pharaoh by his side.

But ever since Ryou got the Millennium Ring, he was labeled a villain. Yugi's group of friends would always be a little careful around him, and no one else understood his pain.

What was there for Marik, either? Egypt, tombkeeper duties and living underground once more? Marik preferred knowing he wasn't all alone in the world, not counting his siblings.

So if Ryou opened his locked heart for Marik, the other would do the same.  
>The tan Egyptian never even realized what he was reaching for.<p>

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><p>The summary is the last two sentences of the first chapter, ne? How lame... ._. I was feeling brain-dead, gomen...<p>

Hope you liked it. Hope I didn't fail anything, I did grammar check and re-read it many times. Just say if I did fail something after all.

Hope you review, that's what keeps me going.


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